My Heart Breaks, I Pray for All

What is going on in the world affects us all on many different levels, both seen and unseen. For me, what's currently happening also feels a touch personal, closer to home in some small way. I made the mistake of going on social media today, barely a moment in and I realised this was not the place to be, not for me, not right now. Especially during a retreat, the very thing I advise people against during a retreat! So here I am instead, on beyondimogen.com - my little nook of the internet. I'm not sure if this post will ever make it elsewhere. -- I am horrified by what is going on in the world on all fronts. The divisiveness, the hate, the lines we have drawn in the sand, too many to count. It all feels impossible. How can we make our way through all of this? What is to be done? Today is the anniversary of my grandmothers death. She walks with me closely still to this day. In someways closer than ever... but that's a story for another day. My grandmother's family were Ukrainian Jews, my grandfather's, Russian Jews. The current war between the two was…

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The Power of a True Companion

To be in a close and sustained relationship with another that provides a clear mirror and crucible for burning through all that you are not is one of the greatest blessings of this temporary dream we call life. There is not a moment in life that I am not cognisant of this gift that life brought me in the form of Martyn, my husband. We have been together for 19 years and there's not a day that goes by that I am not filled to the brim with gratitude for him and for our relationship. Life in many other ways has brought great aloneness, challenges and heartbreak in my life. Life lessons that required me again and again to chart my own way, to walk through the darkness towards my own light. It has not been easy. It is still not easy. To have no path, to have no-one else to rely on in that sense. My life again and again goes through cycles of birth, death and re-birth, sometimes faster than a breath that causes such whiplash. Sometimes years upon years in the making that it feels never-ending. Much of it goes unseen to the world, except to those…

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An Open Heart, A Kinder World

The deep heartbreak of what is and what has been happening in the world of late brings with it an opportunity to light a fire in the heart in service of lasting change. The willingness to be that change for a better, kinder world starts within us all, with an open, tender and loving heart.   I pray with every breath for peace in the world. Peace on all levels and for all beings. I pray for every individual to sink so fully into their hearts and with that to treat all in this world, inclusive of themselves, with the care and love that is so desperately needed.   We must not only cease the many conflicts in this world, but the conflicts many often face silently every day with the inner most tender, hidden and neglected parts of ourselves. This inner fight all too often spills out into the world in unforeseen ways, and vice versa.   It is not only our omnipresent, transcendent divinity but also our ephemeral, embodied humanity that unifies us. In finding our commonality we can truly celebrate our diversity and our differences, no longer seeing them as a threat of any kind. May all…

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A Celebration of Existence

A life of freedom is to embrace it all. The highs AND the lows, the light AND the shadow. To celebrate each moment as entirely divine and magical, yet fully ordinary and mundane. To enjoy the textures and colours of existence, without judgment or division. To be able to fall in love with it all. The silence AND the noise, the calm AND the chaos. Life is here for us to enjoy, because life as we experience it is a continuous celebration of existence. Where there is seeming conflict and opposition sink into the resolution in the heart, where there is room for even the most extreme of paradoxes. Where there is grief and regret surrender into the compassion and understanding of the heart, where there is forgiveness for it all. Where there is confusion and doubt allow yourself to swim in the unknowing mystery of the heart, where no answers or definites are required. Where there is striving and longing let go into the heart of this moment, where everything is perfectly unfolding without exception. Welcome each moment with the fullness of your heart, with the fullness of acceptance and love for all that life is. Give your existence…

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Let Your Heart Sign Its Own Love Song

Don't be tempted to listen to another's heart as each heart has its own way, its own movement that when allowed to fully shine sings its own song. Your song is unique and makes you YOU. No wrong notes, no right notes... just YOUR notes. More often than not all it takes is simply getting out of your own way, getting out of the mind and taking your hands off the tight grip of needs and wants. It takes a willingness to get quiet and innocently listen. The song of the heart never stops singing, we just get good at ignoring it under the weight of expectation. So let your heart sing with the fullness of its voice, the fullness of its love.

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The Sweetness of an Open Heart

There are none so bright and full of love than those that have allowed life to penetrate them fully. Cracked open so immensely and felt so deeply the depth and breadth of their experiencing. Leaving no stone unturned, no shadow unseen, no feeling unmet. Those that have surrendered so tenderly to the acknowledgement that they know nothing. That they are but a whisper on the lips of life, carried in the arms of Grace, and held in the groundlessness of Being itself. Their cracked open heart laid gently to rest at the feet of their very own beloved Self.

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Scary Beautiful Love

In relationships we have to trust and we have to communicate. It's a constant leap of faith to say the things that we think they won't want to hear and we won't want to hear the answer to, to constantly face the fear of rejection and hurt. But if you do take that leap of faith and trust, then it's my experience that life constantly surprises you. It's such a beautiful thing, but it's scary, terrifying in fact. I've been with Martyn for 15 years and it's STILL scary. I still have to take a breath at first sometimes before I say something that is tender and edgy for me, something that I'm not sure of his response to. This feeling of fear doesn't disappear over time, you just get used to it. You learn to know it, you even learn to love it because it tells you where your edge of comfort is. It never fully feels safe to share those things that you don't want to share, because it's NOT safe. It never feels safe because when you reach an edge of yourself it's ALWAYS scary. It's not about the other person, it's about you. It feels scary…

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The Head or the Heart

There's a constant exploration of life that is immediate. To listen to your body, your physical response to life, your intuitive knowingness. The pull towards yes or no. Not on an intellectual level, but on a physical level  of what's right or wrong for you in that moment. And we are conditioned to override this all the time. There's a bravery and a risk to listening to that intuition. Your heart, your physical response and reaction to life. Often it can go against everything that you think you know. But it's screaming for your attention. Will the head win? Or will the heart? Will you let the conditioning and the head run the show? Or will the naturalness of life win out? This can be a big battle for most. The intuition and the heart eventually will win the war, but it can take time.

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